"Wolf's Moon"
Wolf's Moon 'Wolf's Moon ' Deke digs deeper into the mysteries he discovered yesterday. He learns after giving Pokadot a bribe of breakfast that the police have not recovered “Bloody Maurie”’s head and that she had the same tattoo markings as previous victims. Deke also tails Bob and Suzie to find out more information, but neither seemingly has any odd patterns of behavior- save for Bob who seems to escape a tail or two and appears in places Deke didn’t expect. A quick digital search finds out that Bob Dobb was born and raised in New Orleans, even studying at Tulane for his medical licensing. He finds Anne Carter’s Facebook page, which still lists her status as engaged. There’s little activity, but Deke finds some photos from Halloween. The pair are dressed up as Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk, with a few photos of Elli styling Anne’s hair. Deke attempts to look for the purple hair streaked Betty, but does not see her. The head nurse at the lobby mentions Betty has taken an unpredictable schedule due to others calling in sick and the staff already being shorthanded. Deke tracks down Suzie’s friend Daisy Jackson, who is an artist who sells her wares in the Historic French Market. Daisy is a human and confirms what Suzie said earlier, the two met and both got haircuts, hung out then Suzie headed out to find Deke. She tells Deke that they had an exclusive appointment at the Crescent City Salon, whose specialty is providing haircuts for people at all hours of the day by appointment. According to Daisy, many officers of the police department use the place. Deke goes to the bureau and land and conveyances to ask for tax records, but the staff say that due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina it will take a bit longer than normal to get the information. They’ll have the information to him ready in a few days. As Deke is investigating, he receives a call for a potential job. The call comes from a smartly dressed woman. She doesn’t quite look like the woman Deke last saw in the Aklat, but has similar features. A quick inspection from Deke makes him realize she’s a werewolf. When they sit down to talk, Deke learns her name is Lily Argentum and would like to hire him as this moon’s arbitrator. The regular hire, Shaman Reginald the III has skipped town but emailed Lily to recommend Deke take his place. She pays him the normal fee of $1000 and assures him that the werewolves will not be feral. To ensure his safety, she gives him a gift of a silver-bullet revolver with six silver bullets in a velvet-lined case. Deke agrees to the deal and drives away to their council meeting inside Lily’s limo. Their destination is Bogue Chitto State Park, where Deke learns that Lily’s family as well as several other werewolf clans rented out the entire space. He sees ten tents set up in an open field in addition to his finely decked out cabin that has several curtains of silver chains hanging in the door and windows. Deke learns that there are only two main bits of business for this council meeting- a dispute regarding the Luparo family and the coming out of her daughter, Abigail. Leonard Luparo immediately goes over to Deke to ask him to help his son, Leland “Lee” Luparo. Leonard also spills the beans to Deke that Lily Argentum and her entire family are special werewolves immune to silver. Deke learns that Lee has been put under a curse because he saw one of his family members steal the deeds to Leonard’s rightly inherited land. Lee’s only been able to answer yes or no questions. Whenever he’s asked directly about what happened- he’ll immediately do something embarrassing. First, Deke asks Lee to write down the name of the person who took the deed. Lee writes the letter L and then draws several hearts afterward. Deke asks several questions, enduring Lee singing “I Enjoy Being A Girl” and almost stripping naked. He learns that Lydia Luparo took the deeds and hid them inside the family’s spelled bible coffer so they could not be found by a scrying spell. Deke decides to meet up with the rest of the clans in the camp’s cafetorium see if there’s anything else he can do. Most the families are calm- there’s a father and daughter playing cards, another rowdy group drinking from mugs that don’t look like they have coffee in them and still more who are keeping to themselves. Deke realizes how spoiled rich these werewolves are when he gets up to the cook’s area and asks for a cup of coffee. The cook then asks him what kind of coffee and gives him the option of several types of milk, almond milk and soy milk included! Sitting with his hot Royal brand coffee, he watches the various groups. He notices Lily walk over to the father and daughter playing cards to sit on the man’s lap. This action makes a man reading something on his mobile device look up and frown. As the day wears on, Deke makes friends with Jarod Deepwater who Deke notices is wearing a “Dingoes Ate My Baby” T-shirt. Jarod explains to Deke the Argentum family’s immunity to silver is passed on genetically. Abigail, who will be coming out tomorrow night, is just 16 but will be expected to marry another of the clans and to try to produce as many children as possible. Lily was a distant cousin of her husband Taylor Argentum’s family and naturally had the immunity on her own. Jarod shows Deke the massive structure that all hereditary werewolves are ritually required to climb to be inducted into the Louisiana council. One tall pole features several smaller unevenly spaced pegs, each with a different word carved on it (poverty, discrimination, etc.). It will now be Abigail’s turn to be shackled with silver handcuffs and then attempt to climb to the top. Deke decides not to climb the adult-size obstacle course and heads back into the cafetorium. A fight breaks out in the cafetorium when one werewolf family suggests Lily is easy. This prompts the man who was frowning earlier to run over to the rowdy group to beat down the guy who spoke out, whose name is Leroy. After the fighting is over, Deke notices Lily and the unnamed man walk out of the area. Instead of sneaking up on them, he heads over to his own cabin to put away his things. While he’s in the bathroom he hears the man declare his love for Lily. After loudly rattling his toothbrush to let them know he wasn’t listening in on their conversation, he hears the two leave. The sun sets and he sees everyone turn into werewolves. They all begin to run together in a pack under the full moon. After a knock on the door, a human waiter appears bringing Deke a sumptuous meal of venison steak, homemade mashed potatoes and assorted pastries. He leaves and Deke spends the rest of the night in. When he wakes up the next morning, he’s surprised to see a crowd gathered around the main field of us cabin huddled over a dead body. It’s the body of the cook who brought Deke his dinner! A werewolf named Barbara is whipping the crowd into frenzy, accusing young Abigail Argentum of mauling the cook. Deke immediately brings Abigail closer to him to prevent a mob from attacking her and walks over to the body to investigate. He looks at the corpse and perceptively notices the maul marks were made with a knife not a claw! He ushers Lily and Abigail into his cabin for protection and presses them both for information. Abigail confirms she got lost from the pack for the first few minutes, but Deke can confirm the cook was still alive at that time because the cook brought him dinner. He presses Lily and asks who else is here besides the pack? Dumbfounded, Lily responds that only her driver is still here in his own cabin closer to the main gate. With that, Deke takes off running. He runs to the cabin and sees the driver has already fled on foot into the woods. Carefully tracking the guy, he finds him talking to seemingly no one. Recording the footage, Deke learns that the driver is acting under telepathic instructions with others to dispatch of Abigail Argentum. Sneakily, Deke comes up behind him and knocks him out. Then, using some handy duct tape, ties him up. A quick search reveals just $5, but an email printout from an online bank reveals of a suspicious payoff of $5,000. Taking him and the evidence, Deke heads back to his cabin. He suggests to Lily and Abigail that their family leave the driver for the police to find and not mention they are werewolves. Lily agrees and goes to help her husband, Taylor handle the crowd. It seems Taylor’s doing just fine, getting Barbara, Leroy and the others to start drinking and singing some songs about a man who loves Uranus. With Deke and Lily alone, she confides in him that she was afraid of disappointing her family by completing her coming out. She knew the cook, whose name was Robert and that he was saving up to be a photographer. After quelling the crowd, Lily suggests that Deke take one of the clan’s rental cars back to New Orleans to ensure no drinking and driving. As Deke drives to an internet café, the Aklat flashes him a picture of the driver in handcuffs led away by police. Deke send an anonymous email to clean police officers he doesn’t know about the murder. After a long day, Deke takes a long hot shower. When he gets out, he sees someone has left him an email. It’s from the Head Chief of Police Adam Warren and there are just four simple words: I AM WATCHING YOU. In response, Deke gives him the one-finger salute.